Curtain-sacks, when depicted in certain contexts, such as scenes of birth and death and most frequently Annunciations, as in Rogier van der Weyden's Columba Annunciation (Munich), symbolize the Incarnation. Created by 1415 in Franco-Flemish circles, the symbol was used by numerous 15th-century Netherlandish, German, and French artists. That the curtain-sack was endowed with incarnational significance followed from its physical likeness to late medieval representations of the womb as well as to the abomasum of ruminants and curd-sacks. If womb-like in appearance, then conception could be imagined as analogically occurring within it. The embryogenic processes then invoked were Aristotelian. Central was a cheese analogy which likened foetal formation to curdling. Both the abomasum and curd-sacks stored curds and the former was even used to manufacture them. Through these associations, the curtain-sack became a potent iconographic symbol.

DIANE COLE AHL - Benozzo Gozzoli's Frescoes of the Life of Saint Augustine in San Gimignano: Their Meaning in Context (pp. 35—53)

This paper considers Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes of the life of Saint Augustine in San Gimignano in terms of their iconographic, stylistic and historic significance. It proposes how the cycle reveals the Quattrocento's conception of Augustine during a period of intense religious reform, synthesizing a rich hagiographic tradition with the image of the teologian that the Order sought to promote at the time. The importance of the murals in Benozzo's own stylistic development as well as their contributions to Renaissance narrative are assessed. Finally, it reconstructs the history of the chapel's patronage through new documentary evidence. The donor's involvement with the Augustinian Osservanza suggests that the chapel may constitute a unique instance of reform iconography.

New Documentation and Background Material for the Later Carpaccio. I: Joachim Meets Anne for the Chiesa di S. Francesco in Treviso

The altarpiece, painted by Vittorio Carpaccio in 1515, is analysed on the basis of the documentation and with regard to its iconography. Archive files and the recollections of scholars enable us to reconstruct the commissioning of the altar and the altarpiece, by Libera de Claudis in memory of her dead husband Alvise da Prato, in the context of the Chiesa di S. Francesco, a kind of local pantheon for the patrician families in Treviso. They also enable us to identify the saints at the sides as S. Luigi IX and S. Libera, the patron saints of the sponsors and to see in the emotional hug of the two protagonists in the painting a reference to private matters.

Anyway in the context of Franciscan thinking the choice of Joachim and Anne also serves as praise of the Immaculate Conception. Thus Carpaccio's altarpiece painted from the same church by Alvise Vivarini for the Lancenigo altar, with the same mingling of family remembrances and purposes of public worship.

CECIL GOULD - The Earliest Dated Titian? (pp. 67—71)

The Portrait of a Man in the Brera, Milan has been attributed to Savoldo and to Torbido and the date on it read as 1505 or 1510 or 1520. The present article reads it as 1510, at which date the painter was most probably Titian. It would therefore be his earliest dated work; and

X-rays now published for the first time reveal a very early example of a double portrait, as well as a different single portrait underneath.

Rubens' use of source material varies widely; outright copying, concealed or multiple references, or transcription. It is however interesting to note how the adaptations and variations during his stay in Italy are all in keeping with an ultimate ideal model he follows - his favorite Italian artist. Then when he returns home all his previous models are also to be adapted to a new ideal model which is precisely Rubens' own style.

In the compositional structure of baroque art, one of the basic, most characteristic, means of expression is the way light and shade are used. In the paintings of quite a number of the artists from around 1600 the darkness deepens, dimming the outlines of the figures and objects, sometimes even predominating over the lit up parts. This tendency of style later called the maniera tenebrosa finds no correspondence in baroque art theory and was attacked by critics of the time.

However, in practice tenebrism was an extremely widespread current in painting. Darkness as opposed to light and at the same time complementary to it is an iconographic and psychological factor of significant importance in this new language of art. This cannot be solely explained by the influence of Caravaggio as is usually done. Caravaggio merely gave eloquent expression to this tendency which was born of a general background in the spirit of the time. This study is an introductory attempt at tracing what ideas and opinions went to contribute to the phenomenon of tenebrism and at the same time are a commentary on it. The answer to this question we do not really find in the art criticism of the time. An exception is Lomazzo's Treatise which introduced the extremely important idea of "sacred light". But there was a current of thought considering darkness as a value, as opposition but at the same time necessary complement to light. It may be found in texts dealing with other fields of intellectual life. In this regard is mentioned the theology of darkness in St. John of the Cross as well as fragments of the works of Kepler, Giordano Bruno and Galileo. There is also pointed out the frequency with which manuals deal with the projecting of shadows. The bulk of source material is supplied by the cabalistic and alchemistic doctrines with lengthy excerpts quoted from the works of Robert Fludd, Blaise Vigenere and especially Athanasius Kircher. The question of light and darkness is the most deep-rooted characteristic of baroque culture. This was also perhaps the only period in history when this question called forth so much speculation and achieved such great prestige, unheard of before then or ever since.

FRANCO BERNABEI - Venezia roman(t)ica e gotica (pp. 113—125)

A critical historical analysis of the Romantic period in Venice, that is in the 1800's, means to be sure dealing with an image of dreams and desire, a close but at the same time, ever so distant response to the problems of European society of the time, oriented in the perspectives of industrial positivism. But it also poses a more complicated and particular problem within the history of art at present busy tracing the historical and geographic guidelines of medieval Italian architecture - Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine.

This article investigates an example of the practice of three artists, Delacroix in Le Lever (Collection Maxime Citroen, Paris), Cézanne in Interior with Nude (Barnes Foundation, Merion Penn.), and Picasso in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York), for purpose of exploring a theory of genres built upon artists' use of other artists' work. Such a theory would engender a model of style in which style would emerge as genre, that is the pattern of sequence of constancy and change of a motif grounded in the social nexus the motivates the particular blend. It presents a view of the artist as a conservator, rather than a radical innovator, whose ability to vary inherited motifs preserves what is constitutive of a culture.

The ready-mades of Duchamp are not provocations, as frequently supposed, but ultimate consequence of his effort to deprive the work of all sensual attractivity and concentrate it to its meaning. They are in the tradition of romantic conception of the symbol and of romantic irony as well.

ROELOF VAN STRATEN - Panofsky and ICONCLASS (pp. 165—181)

The article consists of two main parts. The first is a proposal for improvement of Panofsky's iconographic theory. His famous three-level scheme is changed into a scheme of four levels of meaning in works of art. This enables us to define the terms Iconography and Iconology much better. The revised "scheme of Panofsky" is exemplified at the case of Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance (National Gallery of Art, Washington). The second part of this paper is an introduction to the ICONCLASS iconographic documentation and research system. In recent years, the theory of iconography has found some renewed interest among scholars working in the field of (computerized) iconographic documentation. The ICONCLASS system, with its bibliography and alphabetical index, solves many iconographic documentation problems, by combining several layers of meaning; working with ICONCLASS means working along the lines of the revised "scheme of Panofsky". By the use of a particular painting representing the Choice of Moses, an example is given of how the system works.